


you and your singing eyes

by bostoncommons



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games), Red Dead Redemption 2
Genre: Canon Era, Canon Timeline, Canon-Typical Violence, Drunkenness, F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Other, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Pining, Slow Burn, literally nobody cares they're gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 16:24:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18347342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bostoncommons/pseuds/bostoncommons
Summary: Javier writes a song – or maybe two, or four, and if some or all of them are about Lenny's smile, he'll never tell.





	you and your singing eyes

**Author's Note:**

> for reference: Javier is at most twenty-six, and Lenny is canonically nineteen. I'm gauging Sean to be in his early twenties, too.
> 
> just a warning: some period-typical racist slurs. I don't like them, you don't like them, no-one likes them, but that's exactly the point.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Javier remembers _this girl_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for my brothers who thought javier and lenny were gonna be a Big Thing going off what happened in chapter 2 but were sorely disappointed.

 

There are plenty enough songs about whores. Drinking ditties proclaiming wine and women as the two pleasures of the world,  obscene shanties sung in some form of reverent chorus about fondling breasts, vulgarities, with a pleasant piano tune spun together and reverberating off tavern walls. When the songs stop being about drinks and move onto the other merchandise offered, the patrons are often inebriated enough to stop muttering _greaser_ at Javier's general direction – hell, some nights he finds himself playing guitar riffs along with the rapid-fire piano melody. He has a soft spot for whores, and songs about whores – both are so impeccably familiar. And cheap. So Javier decides to write a song about whores.

He means it to be another fast-paced number to be harkened around the campfire, a private song for the gang. Whores are aplenty, and excepting Swanson and Strauss, the song is sure to find success – he noodles a tad, trying to find the perfect jingle while lyrics scramble in his mindscape. As he thinks, the image of a working girl with fiery red hair tumbling in easy waves insists on resurfacing – Javier can't put a name to her face with supple lips painted red and powdered eyelids, but the skin of his fingers tingle at the thought of touching her. Soft like cream, but the part where her midriff pinched is slightly wrinkled from the strain of her corset. He can't recall her voice, but the smell of scented candles comes to mind. Javier decides that maybe he's purchased her services once, at some obscure bar in Valentine or other (not Strawberry – since Micah, there felt like a sore spot), and was too out-of-his-mind to remember.

That happens to the best of them, he concludes. But the image of her and that sleek figure, curving splendiferously, haunts his creative process and more than once he finds himself strumming a different key entirely, lost in thought.

So the next time Bill declares a time off, Javier puts down his hand of cards and rides to Valentine with some of the other boys.

Javier doesn't say to anyone how he's writing a frankly stupid song about whores, and how he keeps recalling a woman he forgot. It's rather foolproof material for mindless banter during supper, where the others can jeer at him, or offer advice if they're being especially kind or the stew is exceptionally tasty – but he would dread the inevitable time when someone would drag him about a wild goose chase pursuing a prostitute Javier isn't so sure actually exists. She's a fleeting thought, probably the product of a pubescent wet dream that's marked his brain, and with the barest of closure, she would be satisfied. Nobody else needs to trifle with this.

But of course, he somehow finds out. He always does. Javier doesn't know what gives it away – he sits atop Boaz with relative ease, balanced as ever, and he keeps his face even. Javier is rather good at this; hiding, he means, though some people can see right through it. Lenny does.

The younger man steers his mount up to Boaz, bouncing slightly on his saddle as they cross rocky terrain. Bill has sped further, with Sean nipping at his heels – the entire camp knows both aren't particularly keen on whores. Sean enjoys his fair share of flirty exchanges, and no matter how hard Karen tries to play it up, Sean is a surprisingly loyal man; and about Bill, Javier is very sure the ex-soldier is sweet on Valentine's finest and only hotel clerk. Who is–by all rights and appearance–a man. Not that Javier or anyone in camp cares.

Lenny, though, is entirely a mystery. He doesn't care much for workers, but Javier amends that Lenny does have a soft spot for whiskey – he recalls how wasted Lenny had gotten purely off of anxiety, and the gang still hasn't lived that happening down. It is a little surprising Lenny would get back at it while the derision is still fresh, but Javier is grateful for it. Nobody can keep their heads after a few well-placed shots, but Lenny is probably the only one in this posse who'll actually try.

Lenny smiles at Javier, showing teeth. "Been a hot minute since we let loose."

"Coldest minute of my life," Javier says, and for some reason, he discovers comfort in Lenny's laugh, coming in rolling tides that catch the whipping breeze.

There's something so familiar and easy about Lenny Summers. At first glance, he seems more likely to attend law school and end up a Pinkerton than mosey along to join up with an outlaw gang and pull off mass-scale robberies – now, everyone knows to come to Lenny if they need a pick-me-up alternative to booze, because only Lenny can recount tales of their escapades with such bright enthusiasm. When Lenny first joined up, a boy of nineteen, Javier would have sniffed imperiously and given the younger man about three months before his thirst of adventure wanes; but then a week after, when they finally get the newest member to loosen up and get a little tipsy, Javier listens to Lenny's story and amends his earlier expectations. Hell, he fell asleep guilty about it – it probably showed.

Then Lenny awed them all by reading some leather-bound novel with complex prose, Hosea picked him up as a surrogate apprentice, and that was that.

Now, he feels like as much a member as any of them. Where Javier used to be second to Sean in terms of ‘the unofficial little brother', he's been pushed down to the comfortable position of three while the camp's women busy themselves fussing over Lenny. Which is odd – whenever Javier speaks to Lenny, he never feels older. A little more jaded, but never mature.

They crest the hill where Valentine comes into the picture and ride across the train tracks. Lenny brakes Maggie into a canter, and Javier follows suit. The town is as dull as always, and Javier finds comfort in that. It's so cliche, he might think, to find familiar things comfortable. But he doesn't quite know what cliche means.

They chat quietly as they come up the watering trough, and vaguely, Javier can hear the lilt of Sean's Irish accent being carried in the air.

They haven't even approached the batwing doors when Lenny turns to Javier with a frown. "Smell that?"

Hell yeah. Manure, both horse and human, sweat, and inexpensive swill. If Javier has kept up his quota of frolicking, it might not have bothered him as much – but as it stood, his stomach churns without the aid of alcohol.

"Just means we hafta come more often," Javier shrugs, to which Lenny makes a face.

"I smell that liquor – ain't sure if I wanna come at all," Lenny says. Javier gives him a wicked look. It's almost too easy.

"Did you tell Arthur that when you–"

Lenny shoves Javier by the face with his palm, sending him almost tumbling into a roundtable behind him, but when the older man regains his balance he notes the beam on Lenny's face.

"Finish that and you'll be where me and Arthur was before midnight," Lenny hisses without venom.

Javier grins at him. "Got a lot of time ‘fore midnight. Pull up a stool."

They do, and it takes almost twenty minutes to convince the bartender that _no_ , Javier will not start swinging at the patrons and _no_ , Lenny won't arrange the drunkards in a line and begin a rhythmic slapping competition. Javier cracks up, because who can help it? The look of apprehension on the bartender's face laces up the ends and Javier might have started crying because the image of Lenny about to pounce on him comes blurry.

"What else, then?" Javier swirls a glass of gin, later, when his shoulder is still aching from a much-deserved and rather a harsh shove Lenny delivered with a halfhearted chuckle. "How many folks did you assault, exactly?"

Lenny huffs. "A lot less than the glasses, but I'm sure they didn't suffer much. Most were empty."

Javier snorts. "The folk or the glasses?"

There it is again; his laugh. It drifts freely, untainted by rasps and rich of juvenile timbre. Javier pays attention to things like these; laughing, from the gang members. Isn't it funny, how bottom-feeders like them can still find some semblance of humor in a world so amazingly heinous? And Lenny stands as one of his favorites, besides Charles with his deep chuckles and Arthur, because Arthur's thing is that He Never Laughs.

 _‘Ah-ha-ha-ha',_ flowing unstopped, so beautifully ironic. Javier wonders if anyone else cares for his own laugh, too, and takes a minute to consider the poetry of that musing.

Sean finds them at that point and drags them off to join an ongoing game of poker. It's clear the Irishman's had his fair share of spirits already, and it should be concerning that the sun's only beginning to set.

"Here's my boys!" he introduces a bemused Javier and irked Lenny to his newfound friends, who cast an exasperated glance at him, then snubs him as the hands are dealt. Still, Sean persists, and it's probably a miracle how he doesn't manage to incriminate the gang in his ramblings on _‘Javier hasn't seen a shaving blade in many moons'_ and _‘Lenny can read letters! In a sentence!'_ and a various array of other tidbits, only stopping when Lenny thinks to squeeze Sean's shoulder into relative submission. Javier watches with untamed amusement as Lenny begins an obligatory round of sheepish apologies to an uninterested crowd – uninterested, up until a man with a great bushel of a beard stained with a yellow ochre looks closer at Lenny's profile.

"Ain't you that nigger who near shot up the place few days ago?" the man says, and Javier notices how Lenny's body locks in place for a split second. It's something to do with racial slurs: you hear them almost every day, but it kicks the same every time. If anything, the only thing unsurprising about derogatory terms is that it always hints something ugly.

"I seen you before," a different man smoking a clunky cigar pipes up as Lenny opens his mouth. "Damn near waterboarded a man to death, I hear – you got chucked in the slammer, didn't you? Ain't you got somethin' on your head?"

"Does he?" Sean–sweet, stupid, absolutely wasted Sean–chirps, balancing on the edge of a table. "Y'know, he does look familiar–"

"He does not," Javier interrupts, gripping Lenny's shoulder loosely, but feeling the stiff muscle nonetheless. He pats for good measure and affords the group of men an even smile. "If you... fine folk don't mind, we'll be – ah, takin' our leave."

He hates that he startles when the sudden creak of chair leg striking floor plank stabs the air – he tries to play sentinel in times like this, but Lenny hardly flinches.

The man smoking the cigar has stood up rather abruptly, shoulders spread broad, looking big. "Now you wait a minute. Deputy's posted a notice on your nigger friend there. He ain't s'posed to be here."

"I'm not him," Lenny says boldly. "Don't know what nigger you're talking about, but I ain't him. Just a paying man."

"Just a paying man!" Sean echoes, suddenly and with heat. "Yeah! Leave ‘im alone!" He's completely disregarded. If Sean would lose that dumbfounded puppy look in his eyes, maybe he'd be a little more listened to. After all, the pallor of his skin already helps.

"We don't know who you're talking about," Javier repeats, brushing his fingers over his holster for emphasis. "If you folk won't let us go, we'll just take our leave."

Lenny ends up leading Javier up the steps to lean over the banister, once the men settled down on their own accord. Up here, the women loiter, wearing their summer dresses and allowing the warm zephyr to trickle over their rather exposed bosoms. Javier peels his eyes for the redheaded woman, pieces of fragmented memory scenting of piquant perfume and feeling like soft silk. He remembers her hair as being red subdued to auburn, tumbling down in waves after he unpinned her ornament. He can't recollect what she had been wearing then – nothing, maybe. Most likely.

Lenny clinks his cuticles against his shot glass, fidgeting all the while. He observes the group of men uneasily, tense under youthful bravado. Javier admires this; years with the gang has withered his defenses to the bare minimum, but Lenny, barely a decade younger, could feel the prick of discomfort from vulnerability. Javier gets it, he really does – when Dutch plucked him from the downs and gave him clothes, food, a family and a gun, Javier would rather be shot dead than be taken for a candy-ass. He isn't so sure if Lenny feels the same–the kid's far too bright-eyed to be gunning it like that–, but he's seen it before. Least he can do is take their minds off of it; Sean, slapping notes on the counter and refilling his shots rapidly, has already lost his mind, so Javier focuses on Lenny.

"You said you balanced shot glasses on your head?" Javier shakes his glass Lenny's way, causing the ice to bristle. "Show me."

Lenny quirks a brow. "You want to get kicked out this early?"

"You're right, _mi amigo_. We're not gonna give ‘em the satisfaction," Javier nods. "We'll wait ‘em out."

"What?"

"Drink our asses off, wait ‘til the lights start to blur, and buy them drinks. Slip out just as they're getting wasted," Javier gives a pointed glare at the silver chain poking out of the pocket of one of the poker men. "Maybe nick some as we do."

Lenny's eyes glint. "Think it'll work?"

"I've got no idea. But hey, sounds fun."

Lenny chortles, and his vision recurs to the floor below – thankfully, it affixes onto Sean pushing drinks forcefully into the busy hands of the pianist instead of the men still playing cards and fielding the knowledge of Lenny's existence.

"I think I'd like that," Lenny affirms, turning to Javier with a meaningful twinkle.

"Sure you would," Javier says, then downs another shot. The alcohol begins to reel him under.

They packed just enough cash to make the lights blur, vision going fuzzy. Sean sleeps it off on the counter just as the climax of drunkenness begins to hit Javier – holding on to a sliver of reality, he reminds himself of their game plan. Still, letting go is freeing, so he does just that; Lenny is still firmly tethered to here and now, keeping his drinks purely recreational, and he doesn't let go as much.

"Come on," Javier insists, sliding a glass his friend's way. "Loosen up."

"I think you've had enough," Lenny says, not without amusement. "How about that jig you wanted to pull off? Or have you forgotten about that?"

"I'm not that far gone, _amigo_ ," Javier shakes his head, faking derision. "Just gotta have enough I won't vomit when I waste cash on ‘em."

"We'll be getting back that cash," Lenny reminds him. "And I'd rather you talk to them. Seemed to work a whole lot better."

"What, cause I showed them my piece?"

"Nah. I think it's ‘cause I'm a nigger."

A scowl twists Javier's face. "That's… such an ugly word."

"Uh-huh."

"Slurs are so… _repugnanto_. Gross."

"I hear you."

"No, _mierda_ , I think some are funny, like… like _joder_. _Cojón_. Eh, _puta madre_. Just… racist ones. Like the one they called you. And beaner. Which is me."

Lenny's eyes become a little steely. "Don't call yourself that, man."

"Boh." Javier shakes his head again and glances around the grimy barroom. The working girls have begun filing in, gravitating to pockets of openly lecherous men and anyone who wolf-whistles and catcalls. Javier has his eyes set for one, and Lenny's so far managed to fend them off with a polite smile. The whores sometimes approach Lenny on their own accord; maybe they find him handsome. In his state, Javier would vocally agree.

"Who're you looking for?" Lenny asks, further into the night. They've taken up shop on one of the tables left vacant; Sean's mustered enough mobility to follow, but he slumps on the table right after reaching it and is currently dead to the world.

Javier blinks. "Nobody."

"I highly doubt that," Lenny persists, pupils looking a tad more cloudy. He's drinking in moderation but has surpassed slightly tipsy at this point. "You've been whipping your head about since we got here. And you packed a little more cash than usual."

"How'd you know it ain't for more booze?"

"You don't drink that much," Lenny nods at the selection of drinks they've conveyed to their table. The number counts up to impressive, but nowhere near outrageous. "But it's just enough for a night with company."

"And?"

"And nothing," Lenny says easily. "I don't judge. It's just. You're taking your time… browsing."

Javier rolls his shoulders to satisfy a kink, which releases with a pop. "I'm feeling specific tonight."

"Yeah?" Lenny waves his glass at the assortment of prostitutes. "Enlighten me. What's the type?"

Javier glances at Lenny, bleary from drink. Still, he can distinct Lenny's clear eyes, brimming with the intellect that Javier sorely lacks. Javier knows full well why Hosea treasures his protege; there hasn't been another like him, and Javier is almost definitely certain he's the only one who joined up already knowing how to read and calculate. Hosea's heaped most of his novels onto Lenny for the latter to peruse, and it's not rare for him to retell the story in what he bravely calls ‘simpler terms' for the camp – Javier never minds these.

Sometimes it comes across as juvenile, the storytelling around the campfire, but Lenny promulgates his tales with the perfect balance of enthusiasm and know-how. His voice is delightfully lucid, and he strings his words with knowledgeable cohesion. Javier always liked something about hearing English spoken by a native tongue, with a vocabulary of words that sound colorful and complex; Lenny does so without fail. It's easy to hear him talk, harder when he stops.

"Red hair – more auburn, really. Pale, and her skin's… real soft. None of Molly's freckles, just a little. I… don't remember what she wore," Javier narrates, to which Lenny frowns.

"So you've been with her before?"

"I… guess?" Javier meets Lenny's eyes. Brilliant, even when Javier's line of sight diminishes in a surefire pace. Happy, tired, guarded – in them, Javier begins to muse how he hasn't taken Lenny to field work more often. Before Sean came ambling back to camp, Dutch always pits Lenny with Javier during their runs – in Blackwater, the two were pressed back-to-back the entire shower of bullets; the ride to Colter, Javier and Lenny shared a cigarette, watching the back of the caravan with a gun in hand; after hitting the Leviticus Cornwall shuttle, Lenny had his fair share of fussing over the faulty ankle Javier got from sliding off the train.

Where his mind is still sober, Javier jots down that he wouldn't mind seeing Lenny mow down a couple of deer, or O'Driscolls while they're at it.

Javier surveys the company of workers. He catches sight of a few redheads, but most have hefty doses of freckles sprinkled on their skin and the rest have hair brighter than carrots.

"Don't even know if she exists," Javier concludes, and waits. Gauging for a reaction. Will Lenny laugh at him for his difficulty grasping at straws? Tell him it's a lost cause, she's probably fucking someone else? But Lenny rises from his seat a little after, leaving no time for a proper examination.

He reaches for Javier's hand, eyes glimmering with determination. "Let's get to it, then."

The touch of his skin is soft.

  


**Author's Note:**

> let's see how I can turn six chapters into something slow-burn. hold out hope for me, if you would.


End file.
